


Eventually

by SnackerJack



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Afterlife, Canonical Character Death, Family, Gen, Happy Ending, Weechesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 09:23:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnackerJack/pseuds/SnackerJack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby wakes up.  That's cause enough for surprise.  What follows is an account of denial and acceptance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eventually

**Author's Note:**

> This mini-fic was based off of a wonderful post made by [winchesterwarriors](winchesterwarriors.tumblr.com) over on tumblr, which speculated on what Bobby's heaven might be like. I took the idea and ran with it, because Bobby and Wee!chesters is a combination guaranteed to make me feel a lot of things. 
> 
> Spoilers up to the current episode.

“Bobby!”

“Uncle Bobby, help!  Dean’s gonna—“

“That was _my_ cereal—“

“No!  Stop!  Uncle Bobby!”

**THUD**

Bobby Singer huffed out a sigh and buried his head deeper into the pillows.  Pale sun streamed in from the window, heating the back of his neck, and the sigh turned into a groan.  It was too goddamn early for that amount of _racket_.  Kids should come with automatic timers set not to go off before ass o’clock in the morning.

Wait. 

Kids?

His eyes flew open as his hand went for the knife under the mattress, only to scrabble against the sheets and find nothing.  He catapulted upright, mind skittering through a thousand possible explanations: ghosts, poltergeists, a curse, demons, djinn, maybe even a dirty little leviathan trick.

He’d formulated three different strategies for each possibility before he realized that there was something else wrong, and wasn’t that always the way lately?  Always something else wrong. 

This was his house.  His _house_.  With the same wooden paneling and the picture of sunflowers that Karen had painted back during their college days above the headboard.  The queen-size bed with cheerful blue sheets.  The big old oak dresser his parents had given them for an anniversary present.  A dozen little knick knacks here and there, souvenirs from across the country.  Karen’s old vanity he’d never managed to convince himself to give away, her favourite photo still tucked into the mirror frame.

Home.  The same place that had burned to the ground last year. A century ago.  Depending on who you talked to.  He looked again, eying each little detail, from the scratches on the floorboards to his favorite baseball cap hanging on the door hook. Everything in here had been scorched into ash and dust, and yet here it was.  Not pristine, but perfect nonetheless.

 What in the _hell_ —

Somewhere downstairs there was another thud, someone began to cry, and Bobby was out of bed before he could stop himself because he _knew_ that sound. 

He took the stairs two at a time.  He remembered Hell as he hit the landing, Purgatory as he skidded down to the first floor.  The moment of light and panic and confusion after, being trapped and constricted so tightly he thought he might have gone out of existence, and he almost hesitated.  Almost, but all those thoughts disappeared as he turned the corner to the library.

His boys.

Sam, not much more than four, sobbing on the carpet and clutching his knee.  His clothes were too big for him, falling past his hands and feet, and Bobby knew at a glance that they were Dean’s hand-me-downs.  The big brother-worship had kicked in with a vengeance, and it had been cheaper for John to just hold onto all of Dean’s clothes until Sam’s chubby little limbs started to fill them out.

And Dean himself, crouching at Sam’s side and prying at Sam’s fingers.  “Come on, Sammy, lemme see.”

“Hurts,” Sam sniffled, but he let Dean take a look.  They huddled together over the injury, and Bobby was struck by how small they were.   Down on the floor like that, they looked nothing like the men he’d seen stand up against curses and demons and Lucifer himself.  They were just kids.  Tiny and fragile and relatively unaware of all the bad things out in the world.  They hadn’t been that way in years, and seeing them concerned over something as simple as a skinned knee was nothing short of shattering.

“Boys,” he said, and damn but he was proud of his voice for not cracking.

They looked up, two sets of huge eyes in round little faces, and Bobby knew he was lost.

“I fell,” Sammy said, at the same time Dean began, “It’s my fault, Uncle Bobby, I was chasing him and—“

Bobby shook his head in something approaching despair because how many times had he watched these two go through the same ritual, even as adults?  “Ain’t nobody’s fault,” he said, stepping into the room.  “How many times’ve I told you not to run in this house, anyway?”

“Lots,” Dean admitted readily.

Well, _hell_.  Bobby slapped his hands on his thighs, the rough denim beneath his fingers real as anything he’d felt on Earth or in Hell.  This was familiar ground.  “Okay, then.  A band-aid for Sam, and breakfast for both of you.”

Sammy looked up, tears forgotten in the face of breakfast.  “Pancakes?”

“You already had my cereal,” Dean grumbled, but he stood up and pulled his brother up with him.  “Uncle Bobby, can I have bacon?”

“You’ll get what I give ya, and nothin’ else.”

Dean grinned, bright and wide like Bobby hadn’t seen out of him in years.  “’Kay.”

Bobby shooed them toward the kitchen, and went to dig out a bandage from his trusty first aid kit in the bathroom.  It was full to the brim, just like always, duct tape included.  By the time he tromped back downstairs, they were arguing about which was better, pancakes or bacon.

Naturally, because he was a sucker for a smiling Winchester, they got both.

~*~

The day passed in something of a blur.  Bobby went along with the ruse, like it was any another time from when the boys were young and he’d watch ‘em for John.  Before they’d had that falling out, he’d played babysitter more times than he could count.  If he was honest with himself, and he was usually honest with himself about everything but the drinking, he’d enjoyed it more than he would have ever let on. 

When he’d kicked John off of his property for the last time, he’d been more upset about losing the boys than losing John.  Because by that point they were his boys too.  This, this second chance… well, he didn’t think that anyone would blame him for enjoying it while he could.

This wasn’t to say that he wasn’t still on edge.  Bobby Singer was, by nature, a suspicious old bastard, and he probably always would be.  He wouldn’t put it past Crowley to have cooked this up ‘specially for him, and he wasn’t entirely convinced that hellhounds and demons wouldn’t come boiling into the room to show him what sentiment could get you: nothing but screams and blood and pain.

He checked in on Sammy during his afternoon nap enough times that he turned around after the umpteenth trip and Dean was looking up at him, confused and worried.  “Uncle Bobby, is there somethin’ wrong with Sammy?”

“Nope,” he said, consciously making an effort not to turn and look at the stairs.  “Sam’s fine.  Nothin’ to worry about.”

“Okay,” Dean agreed, and shoved his hands into his pockets.  “Can we go look at one of the cars?  You said you’d teach me how they work.”

Bobby’s skeptical old heart did a kind of jump because he remembered this now, remembered John dropping the boys off and saying, “I’ll be back in a week, Bobby, two tops.  Thanks again.”  Remembered it taking almost three weeks because it’d turned into a chase after Azazel, and if there was one thing a Winchester was, it was damn stubborn when it came to the hunt.

Dean had panicked and Sam had taken right after him, and finally Bobby’d had to resort to bribery before he had a small-scale riot on his hands.  New books for Sam, who was already reading everything he could get his tiny little hands on (how did someone so little grow up so damn _big_?), and mechanic lessons for Dean to show off to John when he got back.  And it had worked for the most part, except that by the time good old Papa Winchester had rolled back into town, he was already on the track of a poltergeist down in Tennessee and there was no time to listen to the new stories Sam had read about, or how Dean had learned to change the oil.

John Winchester was a good man.  A righteous man, and he always tried to do the best by his boys.  Bobby sometimes had to remind himself of that.

“Okay, kid,” he said, reaching up to adjust his hat.  “let’s go see what we can do with that old Reliant out there.”

Dean grinned, and there was a gap where one of his baby teeth had fallen out.  “Awesome!”

~*~

By the time they sat down for dinner, Sam still reading and Dean being bullied into eating at least half of his green beans, Bobby had decided that if this was some sort of trick of Crowley’s, he was okay with letting it run its course.  At least for a little while.

~*~

He kept waiting for the phone to ring, for a hunter to need an entrapment charm, or a way to break out of a witch’s curse.  Maybe someone asking for the man in charge of a wayward FBI agent.  Hell, even someone who needed a tow.  The line remained stubbornly dead.  He couldn’t remember the last time his house phone had ever been so damn quiet, and he knew for a fact that the first time he’d had this run-around there’d been at least two calls a day, usually more.

That was the first real sign that this shtick wasn’t just a memory, something being played out for some higher power’s benefit.  Dean and Sam themselves had said their heaven was a replay of the greatest hits, and this, this was different.  He thought that Crowley would have gotten bored by now. 

He paid close attention to the boys, didn’t let them see his unease.  They were smart little brats when they weren’t arguing over what kind of syrup was better, or which movie they should watch when it rained.  So Bobby kept it to himself, got after them for jumping on the beds in the middle of the night, and pretended that he wasn’t waiting for the phone to ring.

Nothing.

The chaotic mornings and lazy afternoons went on without interruption.  He packed them up one day and went to town for a change of scenery, where he bought groceries {“And pie!” upon Dean’s insistence, and if the coffee shop happened to have a damn good apple pie, then that was just coincidence} and when they got back, buzzing with all sorts of energy, there were no missed calls on any of his phones.

He was pulled from staring at the silent receiver by Dean, who wanted to throw a baseball around the yard.  Sam followed slowly, full of not one, but two slices of pie, and fell asleep on the sunlit porch swing as Bobby leapt after a bad toss, losing his hat in the process.  Dean laughed so hard he dropped his glove, and Bobby was forced to run him down and wrestle him into submission to keep some of his pride.

His guard, a battle-scarred wall from decades of defense, started to fall, just a little.

~*~

Time stretched here, wherever ‘here’ was, and weeks passed before he realized it, realized that the time had long come for Hurricane John to swing on through and collect the boys.  Bobby was busy, busy teaching Dean about engines, and showing him how to let a football roll off the fingertips for that perfect spiral.  Busy with Sam, fixing up an old bike with training wheels and letting him tear through the aisles of cars out back.  Busy with both of them, making sure they ate enough, played enough, laughed enough.

It was another two weeks before he realized that he was trying to fill them up with all of the good things.  Things that they hadn’t gotten enough of in the real world, wherever (whenever?) that was.  Things like the same beds every night.  Their own space.  Running around outside instead of endless hours in a car.  Like getting to be little boys instead of Daddy’s soldiers.

He could see the difference in Sam’s eyes already, in the optimistic tilt of his chin when he asked for more books.  John would have tried, but they just didn’t have a way to keep everything.  Items were constantly being picked up and dropped at the nearest opportunity to make room for the next.  But Bobby didn’t live out of a car and a bunch of increasingly skeevy motels; he had the space and the means to store things.  So they spent the better part of a day building a bookshelf for Sam’s new room.

The finished shelves stood nice and straight, and as they took turns brushing varnish in long, slightly sloppy strokes, Bobby caught Sam’s eye and told him that he could keep all of his books here for as long as he wanted, even when John came back to pick them up.  Sam flung his arms around Bobby’s neck and varnish spattered the walls but Bobby was too busy hugging back to notice.

He wondered for a moment if he could have had this the first time around, the simple joy and pleasure in watching over his boys as they learned and grew and argued and chased each other across the property.

And then he stopped wondering, because the thought of a missed opportunity like that cut just a little too deep.

Besides.  He could have it now.

~*~

Summer passed like molasses, or maybe Sam’s river of syrup on his pancakes: slow and sweet.  The times that Bobby stopped to really think about everything dwindled.  Every morning was a cacophony of yelling, shrieking, laughter as Dean held Sam down and tickled him until he was laughing too hard to scream for help.

Sam gave up on the naps a couple months in, coming outside with them after lunch, and reading aloud as Dean and Bobby crawled under various cars and learned about belts and fans and engines.  Sometimes he’d stumble on a word and try to spell it out, or Dean would get it first and Bobby would have to swat at him for not letting his brother learn on his own.  Sam watched, laughing, until Dean had to regain his sense of authority by chasing him around the junkyard.

Nights were his favorite though.  Night was when they tried to cook dinner or went straight for take-out and made a mess in the kitchen even without using any dishes.  Night was bath time and impromptu water fights, and catching crickets and frogs by silver moonlight.  Night was piling onto the worn old leather couch and watching movies or TV and talking through the whole thing until Sam was nothing but a sleepy weight against his arm and Dean was curled up close, eyes tired but proud as Bobby talked to him man-to-man about the salvage business or what they were going to do the next day.

Nights were when he tucked the boys into bed and opened up some of his old books that he had always meant to look into but never had the time.

One of those nights, Bobby realized he hadn’t looked at his calendar in weeks.  John Winchester had never come back by.  The leaves on the trees should have been turning as fall approached.  The nights should have been growing colder.  They weren’t.

Bobby decided that he didn’t care.

~*~

Eventually, the phone began to ring again, but there was never a hunter on the other end.  Only some folks looking for a car part, or for a tow.  Nothing dangerous.  Nothing life-threatening.  Dean and Sam remained safe, untouched by all the things that went bump in the night.

Eventually, Sam had to ask for another bookshelf.

Eventually, Dean stopped sleeping with a knife as the nightmares abated.

Eventually, Bobby stopped counting the days altogether.

Eventually, Bobby started to wake up in the morning and forget that there was both hell and heaven, death and pain.  There was just Sam and Dean.  No tears.  No sacrifices.  No gaping holes left by a lifetime of chasing down the next nightmare.  Just happy, healthy boys.   Bobby’s boys.

~*~

“Uncle Bobby!  Dean spilled—“

“Shut up, Sammy!  C’mere, you—“

A shriek.

Running footsteps pounding up the stairs.

Bobby Singer opened his eyes, felt the sun warming the tangled sheets, and smiled.


End file.
